


Faded Colors of the Dimming Sun

by smckee377



Category: Linked Universe - Fandom
Genre: Linked Universe (Legend of Zelda)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-06-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:54:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24628138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smckee377/pseuds/smckee377
Summary: Warriors decides that the Links need to work on group strategies since they are used to fighting largely alone. The boys split up into two groups for essentially capture the flag with weapons/items. Twilight seems apprehensive about using Wild's enormous and vastly unorganized potions bag, but Wild insists it will be totally fine.It was not totally fine.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 231
Collections: Linked Universe One-Shots





	Faded Colors of the Dimming Sun

Wind rolls over and stretches out all of his limbs in every direction, knocking into Four, Warriors, and Sky. Warriors grumpily sits halfway up and uses his foot to push Wind back the other direction, which startles Wind. He suddenly flails and falls off his bedroll, which he had placed on a flat rock, landing with a muffled thud on the empty bedroll of Twilight. Annoyed, he picks himself up and spins towards Warriors. 

“Well you could have asked me nicely! I would have moved!” Warriors rolls over and huddles closer into his bedroll. Wind humphs and starts dusting himself off. “You have to get up now anyway, so that’s pointless,” then he mutters, “Just as impossible as Aryll in the mornings.” 

“What was that?” Warriors asks threateningly, peeking over his shoulder at Wind. 

“I said you’re just as bad as my LITTLE SISTER!” Wind shouts, then expertly dodges a potion bottle that Warriors throws at him. Laughing, Wind runs over by the fire where Time is already up and getting breakfast going. 

“You shouldn’t taunt him, you know,” Time mentions offhandedly. 

“Well, it’s true!” 

“I never said it wasn’t.” Time looks at Wind out of the corner of his eye with a slight grin on his face. Wind smiles brightly and looks around. 

“Where did Twilight go? I thought he had morning duty today.” 

“Oh he’s up. He’s scouting around somewhere that way,” Time answers, waving vaguely to the west. “If he’s not here for breakfast, I’m certain Wild will angrily find him in minutes for daring to miss one of his hard cooked meals. Again.” Wind laughs. 

“You laugh now, but you try making almost custom breakfasts for 9 people,” Wild says as he approaches. He’s already digging through his pack and pulling out a billion ingredients by Wind’s count. “Why don’t you help me out and get a head start on angrily finding him for breakfast? He’ll complain that his sausage is too cold again if he doesn’t hurry.” 

“Okay! He went this way, yeah?” Wind asks, barely waiting long enough for Time to actually correct his heading. Wind takes off, charging (rather carelessly) through the trees. He starts to slow down when the grade of the mountain starts to get a little higher, forcing his breathing to labor more than before. He takes the chance to climb a rock and get a look at the surrounding area and, sure enough, spots Twilight not too far away. After climbing back down, he rushes over to where Twilight is sitting on a similarly sized rock looking to the east. Wind notices his face changes from its usual stoic nature to a gentle smile as he approaches. 

“Well good morning. You’re not usually the one who finds me for breakfast.” Wind laughs. 

“Wild told me I should get you now before he starts cooking so you don’t complain about your sausages again.” Twilight chuckles, then lets out an exaggerated sigh. 

“Well, I can’t let down our world class chef.” Slowly, he stands, brushes himself off, and puts his sword belt back on. 

“What were you doing out here anyway?” Wind asks curiously as they start back towards camp. 

“Hm? Oh...just watching the sunrise,” Twilight answers vaguely, gesturing to the east. 

“That’s boring,” Wind mutters. Twilight laughs. 

“It’s very pretty. And relaxing usually. Until someone blunders into view screaming about sausages,” Twilight replies, winking down at Wind. Wind can’t help but grin. 

“I’ll tell him you’re coming!” Wind runs ahead and Twilight waves at him, slowly letting the smile slip from his face. He pauses in his walk a moment to look back up at the sky. He sighs genuinely and looks back down. “Well...it was pretty.” After a moment, he continues back towards camp.  
  
  
  
  


“Okay, circle up boys!” Warriors calls out, waving everyone in. The Links form a semicircle in front of him and an assembly of wooden swords and their various other tools like grappling hooks, the fire rod, the whip, some random instruments, and Wild’s bag of seemingly endless potions. 

“Hey wait, I didn’t say you could take these!” Legend says, reaching for one of the instruments. Without hesitation, Warriors smacks the back of Legend’s hand with a wooden sword no one noticed him holding. “OW! Come off it! These are mine!” 

“They are, but only you know how to use them.” 

“And?” 

“And we are a group. We tend to go into battles fighting mostly by ourselves with some direction here and there. We need to actually practice group fighting. Part of that is learning how to use the tools we have at our disposal,” Warriors says reasonably. Legend rubs the back of his hand. 

“Fair, but you still should have asked me first.” Warriors smiles brightly. 

“So! I propose that we divide into two groups of four and come up with a group strategy for getting the flag behind each team’s camp.” Warriors gestures to opposite sides of the makeshift field he created in the gulley near their camp. “All these items are up for grabs, but there are only eight of them. So choose wisely. I’ll come by each side to give advice on your strategies before we begin and I’ll arbitrate. Otherwise one side will have an obvious advantage.” 

“Yeah, the one that doesn’t have to support such a massive ego,” Four says in a fake whisper. Hyrule and Wind giggle audibly while Legend and Wild successfully hold back their laughter. Warriors frowns at them all. 

“Four picks last. GO!” Caught off guard, the other 8 Links scramble to get their hands on a tool they can reasonably use. Anytime Four picks something up, Warriors bats it out of his hands. When the dust settles, Four is sitting as far from Warriors as possible, rubbing his very red hands with an ocarina in his lap. Grinning slightly, Warriors steps forward again. “Okay. Teams are as follows: Wild, Twilight, Wind, and Four on one and Time, Legend, Hyrule, and Sky on the other. Wild, take your team over there and Time, over there.” 

The groups split up into their respective camps, examining their tools. “This is going to be really fun,” Wild says, testing out the whip he picked up. Within seconds, he manages to cut himself with it. Twilight rolls his eyes and looks down at Wild’s pack in his hands. 

“This is surprisingly light for all the crap you carry in it,” he comments. 

“Oh yeah,” Wild acknowledges, “A great fairy blessed it for me at some point. Gives me more room without any extra weight. Pretty nice.” Twilight opens the pack and his eyes widen in horror. “What?” 

“Is this organized at all?!” Wild laughs. 

“Of course it is! That’s the potion pocket! Warriors took everything else out already.” The group looks back towards camp to see a small mountain of random weapons, ore, food, and shields. 

“But...all the potions are just loose! How do you possibly grab the one you want in the middle of battle!?” Wild just shrugs. 

“They’re all different colors. Health is red, stamina green, combo is blue, this one is shock resistance, ice blue is cold resistance, black is heat resistance, purple is extra stealth…” Wild pulls out potion after potion as he rattles off the different effects of all of them. The dread on Twilight’s face grows at the sheer number of identical bottles that Wild pulls out. Wild pauses in his explanation. “Oh but don’t worry. I know all the effects, so you just have to pick the right bottle out.” He smiles and Twilight’s face returns to its usual stoicness as he very carefully tries to replace the bottles. “You don’t have to be so gentle. The bottles are sturdy.” Wild grabs an armful of them and dumps them back in the bag. Twilight breathes in very deeply, just staring at the mess of potions in front of him. 

“Wow, Twi, I never took you for a neat freak,” Four comments. 

“It’s just good to have things organized. Especially if you need to grab one quickly,” Twilight says through partially gritted teeth. 

“So what’s the plan over here, guys?” Warriors asks as he saunters over. The four Links blink at each other and Warriors sighs. “Do you need more time?” The four nod back at him and he wanders off to the side while they quickly scramble to come up with what they think is a reasonable plan. After much, MUCH revision with Warriors’s insights, they finally settle on a good plan and the match is ready to begin. 

Warriors goes towards the center of the field and looks at both teams. He raises his wooden sword in the air, backs up to the side of the field, and brings it down. Both teams jump into action immediately. Wild goes to one side, using his whip to try and hold Time back while being buffeted by the wind from Time’s korok leaf. Legend charges forward with his fire rod, but falls back to Wind’s ever present grappling hook. Twilight keeps guard over the flag, bag in hand, while Four waits ready with the ocarina to his lips. Suddenly, Sky’s flying beetle appears above the flag and Twilight swings the bag of potions at it, knocking it to the side. Twilight gets whacked in the back of the head by a boomerang and he turns around to see Hyrule charging towards him. 

Four frantically plays the sun song, pitching the field into darkness. Legend uses his fire rod to light some tall grass on fire. To his surprise, Wild is in front of him with the whip. He back peddles and manages to avoid several smacks before ducking behind a rock. Wild turns back towards Twilight. “Twi! Heat resist! A black potion!” Twilight freezes for a second as Wild charges forward. Frantically, Twilight pulls open the potion bag and digs around, several potions falling onto the ground. He grabs at the ones on the ground, stuffing them back into the bag as he desperately inspects them in the firelight. “TWI! POTION!” Twilight grabs one of out of the bag and looks, wide eyed, over at Wild. Wild sees his glance and holds his hand up in the air. Twilight hesitates, so Four grabs the potion bottle from his hand and chucks it over. 

“Wait!” Twilight calls out, but it’s too late. Wild catches the potion and quickly downs it, throwing the bottle away and charging dead on to Legend. “WILD STOP!” Legend pops out from behind his rock and sends fire at Wild. At the last second, Wild tries to dodge to one side, but doesn’t quite clear it. The beam of fire scorches his right arm, lighting his clothes and the whip on fire instantly. Wild screams and drops the whip, desperately trying to put the fire out with his other hand. All the Links immediately shift and rush forward, but Time beats them there, using the korok leaf to snuff out the flame with a powerful blast that knocks Wild backwards a few paces. 

“Four! Sun!” Time calls as he reaches Wild. The sun reappears and the group looks at Wild’s arm. “Hyrule, think you can fix this?” Time asks. 

“Yeah. It doesn’t look too bad. Just a big area mostly. You got the fire out quickly,” Hyrule comments. He carefully starts examining Wild’s arm. “Here, why don’t you come back to camp with me. My stuff is still back there.” Wild, grimacing, nods and the two leave. Slowly, the remaining Links look back at Twilight, who is still standing in shock not far from the flag he was guarding with the potion bag hanging limply from his hand. Warriors is the first to break the stand off. He goes over to Twilight and punches him squarely in the face. Twilight collapses and stays down. 

“WHAT the HELL was that!?” Warriors shouts down at him. Time comes over and pulls Warriors back from him. “Why would you deliberately sabotage him? What good could possibly have come from that betrayal!?” 

“War…” Time says, a warning in his voice. 

“No! Don’t you ‘War’ me!” Warriors starts back. “This is not some personality quirk that you can just brush under the rug like all his scouting missions that lead to nothing! He HURT Wild!” 

“WAR! SHUT UP!” Time shouts back. Warriors takes a step back, shocked at the sudden fury on Time’s face. Time takes a second to recollect itself. “It was clearly an accident. It was dark and he couldn’t see which potion was which. Right, Twilight?” Time and Warriors look back down at Twilight, who hasn’t moved. “Twi?” Time kneels and reaches a hand out, but the second he places it on Twilight’s shoulder it is thrown off. Time scowls up at Warriors, who starts to look guilty, but not too much. “Twi, come on.” Time again tries to place his hand on Twilight’s shoulder, but Twilight again throws it off. This time, he turns enough into the throw that it knocks Time off balance and onto his butt. In the partial glance the others got at his face, they could see tears streaming from his eyes. 

Twilight pulls himself up to his feet and takes off running, leaving the potion bag and the others behind. The remaining Links look at each other, all in complete shock, and slowly make their way back to camp. Hyrule is sitting with Wild near the beds and Wild is flexing his fingers, moving his arm around. 

“Man, Hyrule, the fairies must have blessed you directly. It’s almost like it never happened,” Wild says in awe at his practically flawless arm. 

“Almost. You’ll have this scar here, though,” Hyrule responds, pointing at a circular mark by Wild’s elbow. “This is probably where Legend hit.” 

“Eh. A scar’s a scar,” Wild shrugs. “I’m basically 90% scar at this point anyway.” He grins at the group, but none of them really react. His grin falters. “Where’s Twilight?” 

“He...uh...ran off,” Warriors explains. Wild waves this away. 

“Okay fine. I’ll go find him.” He starts to stand up, but Time stops him. 

“He was crying, Wild. He doesn’t need people right now,” Time adds. Surprise, then concern cross Wild’s face. 

“If he’s crying, then he definitely needs me.” He again tries to stand, but Time again prevents him. 

“Let him have some time first,” Time insists. Wild looks like he’s about to get up again. “I’m sure you’ll be the first person he talks to when he’s ready, so there’s no need to force it.” Wild hesitates, looking back over the field, then finally nods. Quietly, they all set about their usual tasks as Wild starts putting his mountain of stuff back in his bag.  
  
  
  
  


Night falls and there is still no sign of Twilight. Wild has been pacing nervously since dusk, but Time still refuses to let him search for his friend. He distracts himself cooking a more elaborate meal than they have had in a while and even rearranges the bedrolls so he can use the flat rock Wind has been sleeping on as a table. Four, Wind, and Hyrule all inexplicably become invested in this task and soon the table is set with leaf placemats, stone plates, and wooden goblets. Wild finishes cooking and the four of them set out all the food and serve everyone, leaving an empty plate in Twilight’s spot. Not long after they start eating, they hear a rustle in the brush. Instinctively, they all pull weapons and turn towards the sound. Twilight is standing there, exhausted with his eyes downcast. 

“TWI!” Wild calls happily. He drops his sword and goes over to him, hugging him tightly. “Twi, it’s okay. I’m sorry. I’m okay. Hyrule got the burn to go away. See?” He pulls back and shoves his previously injured arm under Twilight’s face. 

“That’s good,” Twilight says with a faint smile. “But you don’t have to apologize. This really is entirely my fault.” 

“No, I made it dark. You couldn’t see,” Four chimes in as Wild leads Twilight to the table. 

“Has nothing to do with it,” Twilight replies. 

“You’re right. It’s really my fault. I shouldn’t have shot directly at Wild like that. It was reckless,” Legend says matter-of-factly. 

“No, you did what you did because you thought he was protected against it. It all comes back down to my having given the wrong potion,” Twilight insists gently. 

Legend sits forward a little. “Twilight, it really--” Twilight puts his hand up to stop him. 

“Do you really think I’ve been gone the last however many hours thinking about anything besides my failure today?” The silence becomes uncomfortable. “I’ve thought it through forward, backward, and sideways. The only thing that would have prevented Wild from being burnt was me.” 

“But it’s okay. It was clearly an accident. You couldn’t see, right?” Four asks quietly. Twilight shakes his head. 

“I could see. Just not...accurately.” The other Links glance at each other to see if that made sense to anyone, but they are all at a loss. 

“What do you mean you didn’t see accurately?” Time asks. 

“Well, I don’t know if it counts as lying since it never came up before...but…” Twilight sighs deeply and runs his hand down his face. “Guys, I’m colorblind.” 

“Oh,” Time says. “Well, it probably never occurred to you to tell us since you’ve been living with it all your life.” 

“No, I wasn’t born colorblind,” Twilight says, looking up at Time. “Ever since I got pulled into the Twilight realm, my color vision has been fading. The only colors I can see as brightly and well as I could before are the orange and blue inherent in Twili magic since that is what pulled me through the barrier in the first place. Everything else...is just gone.” None of the others really know what to say, so they wait awkwardly for someone else to break the silence. 

“Is...is that why you were so upset about my potions pocket then?” Wild asks cautiously. 

“Yeah. They’re all in the same type of bottle, so I couldn’t tell which was which since they were all just thrown in there.” 

“I’m sorry,” Wild says meekly. 

“No, please. It’s not your fault. You didn’t know and besides, it’s your stuff. I normally never touch it,” Twilight says comfortingly. Wild nods a little. 

“So when you say colorblind,” Warriors asks, “Do you mean like straight up no colors? Or like you have a hard time telling colors apart?” 

“No colors. Or barely any, anyways.” 

“Huh. I mean, I had soldiers who had trouble with colors before, but never to this extent.” Twilight shrugs. 

“So...why were you watching the sunrise if you can’t see the colors anyway?” Wind asks. The older Links shoot him a dark glance, but Twilight waves it off. 

“There was a man in my village, Rusl. We used to watch the sunset all the time together and occasionally the sunrise when I had to get to the goats early. The colors aren’t the only important thing, though they did make it better.” 

“Do you know what we all look like then?” Four asks cautiously, ignoring the glares from the other Links. 

“Well yes. Colorblind doesn’t mean things suddenly become invisible.” Four blushes in embarrassment. “Colorwise, though, not really. I have a guess based on my own appearance and color memories, but the only one I know the colors of is Epona.” 

“But you remember what the colors look like?” Legend asks. 

“Yeah. I still dream in color sometimes,” Twilight adds. 

“Okay then.” Legend suddenly sits forward and looks seriously at Twilight. The others look at him in surprise. “So blue. Their shirts are both blue.” He points at Wind and Wild who, for some reason, both look down at their shirts. “And Warriors’s scarf is blue as well as my hat, too.” He pauses in his pointing to look around and in that moment, Twilight starts to laugh. The tension breaks and the others are soon laughing, too. 

“My markings are blue and red,” Time adds, pointing at them respectively. 

“My shirt is red, blue, green, and purple!” Four throws in, pulling his shirt out with one hand and pointing with the other. 

“Guys! I don’t need this all at once, please!” Twilight manages to get out between laughs. 

“Yeah really! The food is getting cold! I’m just going to have to reheat everything,” Wild says, mock anger in his voice. 

“Am I foodblind now, too?” Twilight asks, looking down at his empty plate. Wild and Wind quickly scramble to get food in front of Twilight and they all, happily, resume eating. 

“Twi?” Wild says between bites. 

“Yeah?” 

“Do you want me to label the potions?” he asks a little quietly. Twilight smiles gently at him. 

“That would be very useful, yeah.” Wild smiles brightly at him and shoves a chicken drumstick almost fully into his own mouth. Twilight chuckles, shaking his head, and imagines the sunset once more.


End file.
